If you regularly read this blog, you know I love my Wallace Stegner. Crossing to Safety counts as one of my top 10 favorite books — I love the narrative voice and the language as much as the story. I say ‘love’ because I mean ‘love.’ Love is not too strong a word I swear.
Last week I scanned the shelves for my next book, and since I’d just finished the Rebecca Skloot book about Henrietta Lacks (fascinating, by the way) I was looking for a good old fashioned story, well-told. I picked up Stegner’s All the Little Live Things, but then my husband told me I needed to read The Spectator Bird first, as it was a kind of prequel. For the first 40-50 pages, I enjoyed Stegner being, well, Stegner: perfect prose spoken by a character with lots of opinion and verve. And then it fell flat, and I couldn’t decide why.
I think I’ve figured it out. The narrator reminds me exactly — and I mean exactly — of the protagonist in Stegner’s Angle of Repose. His name may not be Lyman Ward but man-oh-man does he think and talk exactly like the guy. Disappointing to say the least.
I also think I’m a little bored with books about elderly men looking back on their lives with disdain. Think Philip Roth. Roth is a great novelist, great prose stylist, but stuck in the mud of angry-old-man-voice. Can anyone say ‘boring’??
So as much as I love Stegner — and I still do — I think I need to go back to reading (a) more female authors, and (b) stories with strong feminine voices. Any suggestions?
Teri Carter's Library 